Translations
Each country site ships in English plus, where there is someone to maintain it, a local language
(.nl in Dutch, .be in Dutch and French, and so on). Some machine-translated languages are live
but have not been reviewed by a native speaker yet, so corrections are very welcome.
How the sites are translated
Section titled “How the sites are translated”All eight country sites are built from one codebase. Every user-facing string lives in a single translations file, keyed by language. A build for a given country only ships the languages that country declares, so adding a language is two steps: add the strings, then switch the language on for that country.
What you can help with
Section titled “What you can help with”- Review a machine translation. Some languages are live but unreviewed. Reading through and fixing the awkward bits is the most valuable thing you can do.
- Add a new language for a country that does not have one yet.
- Fix a specific string that reads wrong or is missing.
You do not need to be a developer. If you would rather not touch code, you can send the corrections as plain text and a maintainer will apply them.
The two ways to contribute
Section titled “The two ways to contribute”Send us the text
Section titled “Send us the text”Open an issue on the website repository with the language, the current wording, and your correction. This is the simplest route and works well for a handful of fixes.
Edit the strings directly
Section titled “Edit the strings directly”If you are comfortable with a pull request:
- Find the translations file in the repository (all strings for every language live together).
- Add or correct the keys for your language. Keep the same keys as English. Only the values change.
- If you are adding a brand new language for a country, flag that in your pull request so a maintainer can switch it on for that build.
- Open the pull request against the website repository.
Guidelines
Section titled “Guidelines”- Translate meaning, not word for word. Match the tone of the English: friendly, direct, no jargon.
- Keep it inclusive and neutral. When in doubt about a person’s pronouns, use the neutral form.
- Do not translate proper nouns, handles, or code.
- If a string does not make sense out of context, ask in the issue or pull request rather than guessing.